


Say Something - Hermione Granger/Baelfire|Neal Cassidy Crossover Oneshot

by starrnobella



Series: Starr-Crossed Adventures [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrnobella/pseuds/starrnobella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Six months after their biggest fight ever, Hermione Granger and Neal Cassidy were set to meet at the spot where there was no fighting, only talking. Will they be able to work through their issues, or will the pair break the Weeping Willow’s one rule? (Once Upon a Time/Harry Potter Crossover One-shot)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Something - Hermione Granger/Baelfire|Neal Cassidy Crossover Oneshot

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters! They are the property of Adam, Eddie, and J. K. Rowling. All song references do not belong to me, they belong to the artists who wrote and performed them. All images were found using Google images. The only thing I hold claim to is the plot ideas of this story. I do not write for profit.
> 
> ALSO! I am not anti-Dramione even if this story may come across that way, it was just the way that the story came to me! 
> 
> Pairings: Hermione Granger/Neal Cassidy (Baelfire)
> 
> Song Recommendations: Say Something - A Great Big World; Try - P!nk; You Should Be Here - Cole Swindell; The Scientist - Coldplay
> 
> Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/babygirl118/playlist/0riJNIvaVuiz6NyXUPfTAv
> 
> Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/starrnobellafanfiction/
> 
> Tumblr Page: livingdreamsandunspokenthoughts
> 
> Twitter: caligirl9392
> 
> Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12077665/1/Say-Something-HermioneBaelfireNeal-Cassidy-Oneshot-Crossover

It had been months since she last saw him. All she knew was that he ran off somewhere after their last encounter. She remembered it much too vividly for her personal liking. It wasn’t pleasant at all. There was screaming from both of them. Harsh words flew from her mouth that she never would have said if he would have just left well enough alone. 

“I can’t believe you don’t fucking trust me enough to go to dinner with a friend from college!” Hermione spat. 

“You are going to see one of your goddamn exs! The one that you were engaged to for two years! How the hell am I supposed to react?” Neal yelled as he started pacing running his hands over his head in frustration. “It’s bad enough that you are going to have lunch with Ron while you are gone, but why the fucking hell do you have to go to dinner with Draco?”

“Because he asked me to have dinner! You have no reason to be jealous, Neal. I’m in love with you, aren’t I?” 

“You didn’t have to say yes to dinner! You could have just said ‘I have new boyfriend and I don’t want to see your ugly blonde head ever again!’ ” 

Hermione just stood there steaming with anger. Looking at Neal hurt too much so she looked at her feet ashamed at herself because she knew why she and Draco were having dinner. He hadn’t ask, she did. 

“Come on, Hermione. Say something!” 

She was frozen. She didn’t know what to tell him. She hated that she was lying to him, but she knew he’d be more hurt by the truth.

“Silence, fucking silence. That’s just great. Nice knowing you, Hermione,” Neal said and stormed out the door making sure to slam it as hard as he possible could. 

Their last conversation was six months ago. It marked the end of the relationship when he walked away. Hermione spent months crying and trying to figure out what she could have said to him. Now, she was just trying to figure out how to live her life without the man who had been there since she walked away from Draco nearly three years ago.

She and Neal had been friends at first. He had been a crucial part in her coping with her choice to leave Draco. They became more than friends slowly about year after they had met. If she wasn’t away on a business trip, then she was spending time in Neal’s flat in New York writing for the paper she worked for. 

She hadn’t heard from him since their fight and this morning when she opened her email, there was one from a name that hadn’t graced her screen since that night. 

Neal Cassidy...What could he possibly have to say? She thought to herself. All she had to go off of was the subject line. Weeping Willow. The one spot in the world where they did not fight. They talk and listen. It was the first place that she went after he walked out of her life, hoping that he’d be there and they could work this all out. It was their safe spot where the truth could be said and they would not fight. Just talk. No matter how hurt or mad the other person was, they did not fight there. It was the one rule they never broke. 

Neal had introduced Hermione to the Weeping Willow when they first met. It was where he rescued her from herself. She was in a downward spiral. She was sleeping with random men she met on the street each night and drinking until she passed out every day. Neal was supposed to be just another one night stand when they first met, at least that’s what Hermione had thought. Little did she know that he would be the one to change her life. He would show her that she had nothing to be ashamed of for leaving Draco because she was unhappy with who she had become. 

Instead of being her own person, Hermione had become lost in the shadow of the Malfoy name for years. Since becoming engaged to Draco, everything that Hermione did had ties to the biggest name in newspaper editors. She would hear people talking about an article that she had written and had her name on the by line, but instead of acknowledging that she was the author they would say that Draco’s fiancee or that person’s Draco’s been seen with lately had written it. It was like his name was the only one that mattered. Everything she wrote was looked at as Draco’s opinion, so she had to make sure that he was not being poorly represented. That was all Draco had been worried about for the last year of their engagement. His representation in her writing. It got to the point where he was almost completely rewriting her pieces. 

That was her last straw. The day that he did it in front of her was the day she took off her ring and left. She never looked back. Not even to give him a chance to explain or apologize for what he was doing. She hadn’t talked to him since that day. It had taken her a lot of courage to contact him about getting dinner when she was in town for their college reunion. She wanted a chance to explain to him why she left. Everything was fine until she had told Neal about her plans, even if it was just the half truth of her plans. 

Now almost four and a half years later, she was about to read an email that she had only wished she had the nerve to send to Neal herself. The draft box of her email was full of written letters that she never dared to send. All of them to Neal. All of them begging for forgiveness and a chance to explain herself. Now, just a click away, was an email waiting to be read from the man she wished she had never let go of. 

From: Neal Cassidy  
To: Hermione Granger  
Sent: 05:00 AM

Subject: Weeping Willow

We need to talk. You know where to meet me. Tonight at 8.  
Neal

Her heart dropped to her stomach. It has been six months since they talked last and this is how he tells her that he is finally ready to deal with what happened. 

Six fucking months and now he wants to talk! What if I would have moved on? What if I had gotten married? She thought. What could possibly have taken him six months to figure out?

He hadn’t asked her to respond to the email. He just expected her to show up. That’s all they ever expected from each other when the weeping willow was mentioned. After hitting send on the email early this morning, Neal sat back in his chair, sighed, and hoped that he would see her when the time came. However, he would understand if she didn’t show up tonight.

He knew that walking away from her was stupid, but he was so mad. She had been miserable when he found her after Draco and yet she had agreed to dinner with him. When she wouldn’t tell him why, it was his last straw. He needed a break. A break from her and from everything that reminded him of her. 

Things had been great up until that fight. They had been dating for two years and were living together. He was hesitant to propose because of her situation with Draco and he didn’t want to push her into something she may not be ready for, but he did love her with all his heart. They were talking about a future together, but they had never talked about if that future included marriage. 

Deep inside he knew he was an idiot for waiting six months to contact her, but he also knew they had an agreement. Two words were all they had to send. Two words would call a meeting where there would be no screaming. No fighting. Just working through their issues. Hearing the truth, no matter how much it hurt. They had gone to the weeping willow to work through their issues every single time since their first fight. The leaves protected them from the world outside and they could just be together. 

“Just let me be right...just this once,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to go to bed another night without kissing you. Come on, you know I’m right..” he said kissing her shoulder.

Hermione smiled, “But I’m always right, even if I’m actually wrong.” She placed her arm over his shoulder. 

She continued, “However, this one time I will admit that you are right and I’m wrong. Only you, me, and the weeping willow need to know the truth,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek. “I never should have sent that letter to the paper, I knew they would print it. I used to work there!”

Neal laughed, “And I told you that you shouldn’t send it, but did you listen to me? No, and then it led to a big fight after you saw it published. Which then leads to why we are here.” 

“Yes, yes. I know you were right. I should have just left it alone and burnt the damn thing.” 

Neal smiled and leaned in to kiss Hermione. He started out slow and gentle. Every so often he would stroke his tongue on her bottom lip until she opened up enough so he could slip his tongue in her mouth. Hermione moaned into the kiss as she slid her tongue along Neal’s. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he pulled her by the waist on to his lap. 

That was the last time they were at the weeping willow. Hermione had written an angry anonymous letter about Draco to the paper where he worked and it had gotten published with a response from the editor of the paper. She wrote the letter about a year into her relationship with Neal. It had been his idea to write it, but not to send it to the paper. He wanted her to light the letter on fire after she wrote it. It was just a chance to get all of her feelings out on paper instead of bottled up inside. When she saw it published in the paper with a response from Draco, himself, she got angry and she took her anger at his response out on Neal. 

As the hour drew closer to the arranged time, Hermione was in her small flat getting ready to see Neal for the first time in six months. She didn’t know what to expect other than that he would be there promptly at eight waiting for her like always. Her mind was running a mile a minute thinking about the events of the last six months. 

Bloody hell...why am I so nervous for this? It’s not like this is the first time we are meeting at the tree after a fight. Hermione thought to herself. We were a couple deeply in love, for crying out loud. What the hell he thinks we are going to accomplish after six months of not speaking is beyond me, but I will hear him out. With that thought crossing her mind, Hermione was out the door on her way to the park. 

Neal was waiting under the weeping willow when she arrived. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him. It was like they hadn’t been separated for six months. Seeing him made her smile. She knew it shouldn’t. She knew she should be mad at him for walking away from her six months ago, but she wasn’t. She was happy and relieved to see him.

When he spotted her coming up the path he stopped breathing for a split second. He smiled because she had come. He was afraid that she would have blown off his email because he took so long to reach out to her. It made him genuinely happy that she was there. He hoped that by the end of their conversation tonight that they could potentially pick up where they left off before his stupid mistake, or at least be able to move forward. 

She looks thinner. Neal noticed and shook his head as she walked closer towards him. After her break up with Draco, Hermione stopped eating regular meals. She would go days without eating anything because she either wasn’t hungry or she was too depressed to get out of bed to eat. I never should have left her alone for so long. Mentally, Neal scolded himself and told himself to never leave her in this situation ever again.

“Hi,” Neal said as he stood up to greet Hermione as she walked in between the leaves of the tree. 

“Hi,” she responded. Not entirely sure what to expect from him as she approached. 

He reached out to gently place his arm over her shoulders in a soft, tentative hug not knowing how she would react to the contact. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small smile on her face which helped him to relax a little bit from the tension of the unknown outcome of this situation.

After the awkward hug, they decided it was time to sit down and talk. Neither wanted to start the conversation though, so they sat in silence for forty five minutes before a single word was spoken. 

“I’m sorry,” Neal finally said breaking the silence causing Hermione to look up at him from her hands. “I’m sorry for walking away from you. I’m sorry that it took me six months to contact you.”

Hermione just stared at him as he talked. Unable to voice what was running around in her head because she was unsure of what exactly it was that she was feeling. She was angry at him for leaving, but at the same time she was happy that he had reached out to her. 

Neal understood her silence. It had taken all of his nerve to even say the brief sentences that he did manage to say. Everytime he had sat down at his computer to type her an email, he chickened out. His draft box was filled with unsent letters begging her to meet him her. Something would happen at work and all he wanted to do was celebrate with her when he came home, but she wasn’t there for him to tell and she hadn’t been since he returned to his flat later that night after their fight. That night he picked up the phone to call her fifty times, but he could never bring himself to hit dial. 

The silence continued for a little while longer. Finally a small voice came from Hermione that shocked both Neal and herself to hear. 

“I had asked Draco to meet me for dinner,” she said meekly never looking up from her hands, scared to see Neal’s reaction to the news. 

“I felt that I owed him an explanation as to why I left,” she continued, “so I wrote him an email about a week and a half before our fight. Kind of similar to the email that brought us here. He had responded yes along with a location and time, which is why I let you think he had set it up and I just agreed. I’m the one who owes an apology here, Neal. Not you. I’m sorry for keeping the truth from you. I just knew that you wouldn’t be happy with the dinner and I knew that it would make it even worse if you knew I was the one that requested it.” 

Neal sighed placing his hand on her thigh as he spoke, “I knew about the email.”

At this admission, Hermione looked up in shock at Neal. “What? How?” she asked confused.

“The night of our fight. Your email was still open on the computer when I went to check out a place for dinner and his response was sitting there open. I clicked the read more button and saw the initial email. I just wanted you to tell me the truth, that’s why I confronted you that night,” he responded. “I never should have looked more into the email, but his name caught my eye and I just remembered how miserable you were when I found you after the break up, so I wanted to know why you had an email from him. I’m so sorry, Hermione.”

He reached out to take her hand. She let him, but only for a brief second. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew I was lying to you?”

“I didn’t want to believe that you would lie to me. It was the first time it had ever happened, that I found out about anyways. If there were more times, please don’t tell me now,” he joked with a smile. “I overreacted, but when you were silent about it all I was terrified that you still had feelings for him and that was why you didn’t tell me the truth in the first place.” 

She placed her hand on his cheek softly stroking her thumb along his jawline. Looking deeply in his eyes, she opened her mouth to speak softly, “I wanted to tell you the truth, but I was so afraid of you leaving me that I didn’t say anything and then my worst fear come true. You walked away from me. You left me alone in that big flat. After you left, all I could do was cry as I packed my stuff.” 

She looked down at his hand resting on her thigh, “Once I was packed, I left. Didn’t leave a note or anything. I just needed to be out of there. Too many memories started flooding into my mind and it just hurt even more.” 

Her tone had changed and she was struggling to keep her composure. Tears started to flow down her cheek, “I hated you for three months and then I started hating myself more than I hated you. I hated that I couldn’t give you an answer and for that I hated myself. I have for the last six months. Many times, I thought about just showing up at the flat, but I didn’t because I was ashamed of myself.”

“Hey, look at me,” he said taking his hand from her thigh and tipping her chin up in the direction of his face. She blinked a few times looking him in the eyes as the tears rolled down her face and his thumb brushed them. 

“I was hurt and I hated myself, too, from the moment I left and I will until the day I die for that fight. I was stupid to leave you alone. I should have took your hand and dragged you to this spot and begged you to talk to me. I just didn’t want to be right about your reason for contacting Draco. Not that time. Since that night I have come to this tree every night hoping that something would call to you to come here and talk to me, but I knew you wouldn’t unless I reached out.”

Neal was fighting back tears as well. Before he could say another word Hermione kissed him. Softly at first, just enough to get his attention. His hand soon slipped behind her head holding her closely. She then wrapped her arms around his neck moving herself to sit on his lap. The soft kiss deepened as she took her new seat. However, before the kiss could become anything more, Hermione broke the kiss leaning her forehead against Neal’s and whispered, “Can we move past this?”

Neal smiled, “Of course we can, Hermione. I love you and I never want to leave you alone like that again.” 

Hermione nestled into his shoulder with a smile on her face. 

“Just so you know, I never went to that dinner. I couldn’t face him after I lost you. I didn’t think I was strong enough,” she said softly.

All Neal could do was kiss her temple and with a sigh he said, “Never say you are strong enough to deal with something. You are the strongest person that I know.”

“I love you, Neal. More than you’ll ever know,” she said before she kissed him. 

“Let’s go home. The flat just hasn’t been the same without you.” 

Hermione nodded and smiled. She stood up off Neal’s lap and waited for him to stand. He held out his hand for her to hold, which she took gladly. They were off and headed home to reconnect after six long months apart.


End file.
